


It Takes a Village to [Raze] a Child

by Aspire_to_Inspire



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Branwen Tribe, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 20:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18289745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aspire_to_Inspire/pseuds/Aspire_to_Inspire
Summary: Growing up in a murderous tribe of thieves, no one ever promised the Branwen twins the right to survive.Raven decided to survive anyway, and she was taking Qrow with her--no matter who got in her way.





	It Takes a Village to [Raze] a Child

They stayed together at all times. It wasn't a matter of familial affection or the synchronicity of twins, but about staying back-to-back with the one person who wouldn't gut you for the slightest reason at the first opportunity. The moment Qrow was out of sight or earshot, Raven felt like a fledgling left out in the open, dozens of predators taking note of her vulnerability. So they fought to stay together, which meant finishing whatever fight the other started and starting your own with anyone who insulted them within your hearing. Any softer, warmer emotions they held toward each other were buried under sheer necessity to survival.

Of course, this was common in the tribe: shared history, shared homes, even shared children were no guarantee that you wouldn't get cut off at some point. Everybody needed someone to trust, but here, trust was highly transferable.

She and Qrow worked for their keep mostly through in-camp duties: burying waste, keeping torches lit, scrubbing any surface that someone decided to eat off of. Raven had recently joined the raids as a sweeper, a job kids took to scatter through a village during the fighting and secure as much as they could—grabbing lighter valuables and bundling away bigger ones in cellars and trunks and other hiding places—before the bandits had to pull out due to incoming Grimm. Sweepers were also...not allowed, per se, but _expected_ to skim a bit off the top, and a little extra of anything meant the world to a couple of orphaned kids.

The snag was that Qrow, a highly resented liability, wasn't allowed anywhere _near_ raids. Raven would have refused the job if it wasn't already clear to her that sticking together wasn't enough to keep them safe. She still had distant memories from when they were six--maybe seven--of her twin being dragged out of their tent in the middle of the night and hastily beaten into unconsciousness. Rival bandits had been on their way to attack and, wanting to lessen the chances of any mishaps in the coming fight, the tribe had shattered Qrow's aura in the hopes of deactivating his semblance. It had taken three similar attempts that year before they figured out it didn't really work. More and more, Raven could read in their eyes the desire to dispose of Qrow entirely, and the longer she stood by him the more they wondered if they might as well be rid of her, too.

Now that she had proven her usefulness, they had switched tactics, trying to distance her from her brother by taking every opportunity to make her feel welcome and taking advantage of her every absence to make Qrow feel decidedly the opposite. Bruises shaped like hands and fingers and fists became a permanent fixture on his body, and he was all but resigned to eventually being offed in one way or another. Raven knew that no amount of beating could ever make Qrow any less scrappy and defiant--he was _her_ twin after all--but having everyone wish for nothing more than to discard him cut deeper than he was willing to show, especially when both of them had been raised to believe that such a reaction was perfectly reasonable.

It was soon after they turned eleven that Raven returned to camp to find that Qrow had been taken on an expedition to tear down some buildings in an old village and bring back the materials. She'd wanted to cave in Slade's nose when he told her, but instead she swallowed her anger down to join the nerves bundled in her stomach. She scaled the wall and perched on top, keeping watch, until the clouds thickened and a heavy rain began.

“Come on down, Feathers! Your freak brother must be fine for the weather to turn ugly like this.”

Raven growled under her breath as Slade called up at her. She glanced haughtily over her shoulder at him, and his lip curled. “Don't worry, Feathers. I'm sure Cedar and the crew are treatin' him wonderfully. They just might _kill him_ with kindness!”

It could have been nothing. She might have thought it was nothing if it weren't for the breath—the quick, sucked-in noise right on the tail end of his jeer, the sound of someone who'd said too much. It made her turn to look him full in the face, where his cruel smirk hadn't quite chased away the nervous shame of a secret-breaker.

_No._

She jumped. She rolled when she hit the damp grass and dashed into the woods as Slade shouted after her. There were a dozen different ways they might do it—an accident, a scuffle with a Huntsman, a fall into the northern river, swollen and treacherous with spring runoff from the mountains. Or maybe they would abandon pretense, cut him down and let the elements and animals destroy the evidence. They would concoct some story and every bandit who didn't already know the truth would open wide to swallow it, every single, spineless one of them.

She pushed her sprint faster and faster, knowing that it was miles to the village and the only way to blot out the looming truth that her twin was dead or dying and she would never get there in time was to force the exertion to burn in every inch of her muscles, lungs on fire, ready to run until her heart gave out.

But her legs gave out first. She stumbled, then crashed to the ground in the dimming light, forced to lay in the dirt and spit bile from her mouth. Would she know if Qrow was already dead? Would she have felt it? The superstitious were always saying junk like that about twins; the raven born first as a sign of death, and the crow carrying it with him wherever he went.

There was a noise. She tensed, gathering her legs beneath her. She immediately identified human footfalls, and for a wild moment she thought it could be Qrow, escaped and unscathed, but none of the voices she heard belonged to her brother. They fell silent as she rose to her feet and moved toward them.

“Who's there?” snarled one of them. A gun cocked with a click, but Raven ignored it as she wove around the trees blocking her view. Cedar was standing there, flanked by his two daughters and holding a blood-soaked rag to his stomach. His eyes narrowed hatefully at Raven.

On his left, Milu put up her pistol with a curse. “Raven, _what_ are you doing here?”

“Listen, kid” said Lana on his right. “Run back and let everyone know that old dump is swarming with Grimm. We got Dad out when one gashed up his belly, but we don't know if we're being followed.”

“Where's Qrow?” Now it was two pairs of eyes that narrowed at her.

“Why are you still here?” Milu said sharply. “Get going!” Raven dug out her knife.

“Where's my brother?” she demanded shrilly.

“How should _we_ know?”

“What did you do to him?!”

Cedar shoved his daughters away and took one lurching step toward Raven. “That walking disaster is _worm food_ , you insect!” he yelled. “A blessing for this tribe far too long in coming!”

Raven's vision went red and blurry. “Where is he?” Cedar spat at her.

“With any _luck_?" he sneered. "Burning in _hell_.”

She screamed, hate and grief shredding her throat, as she jumped forward and sliced viciously at the hand holding his wound, hoping to sever it and doom him to bleed out no matter how quickly they gunned her down for it.

She could have sworn she was too smart to close her eyes against violence, but it was the only reason she could think of to explain why everything went dark when she felt her blade tearing through what she thought was skin and flesh. Her momentum remain mysteriously unchecked as she tumbled forward, instinctively casting the knife away from her body. Her vision was suddenly filled with the monstrous head of an Ursa.

She reeled back, hand grabbing blindly for the weapon she'd just discarded. The monster in front of her was dead, most of its body already curling away into black mist, but was it alone? Her head spun: buildings, some crackling bonfires and others sputtering out in the rain; smoke rising through the air from flames and Grimm corpses; human figures in the mud, all blood splatter and glassy eyes.

How had she gotten here?

Her hand found the blade's handle and brought it up in front of her. It was soaked in blood, already growing tacky and sticking her palm to the handle.

“Qrow?” She got to her feet, planting them firmly in the dirt to brace herself—for what, she couldn't say. “Qrow!” Her call rang out as strong and steady as she could make it, then she held her breath.

There. Nearly drowned out by her heartbeat racing in her ears, a wooden thump. She swiveled to face its direction on the first beat, then took off toward a shed-like structure. It had no roof, and only two walls still standing—two and a half, if she was being generous.

“Qrow? Qrow? Oh gods, oh _gods,_ Qrow!”

He was pinned down by a wood beam across his lower back. She could make out a pitchfork hanging on the wall at his foot, still swinging from when he'd kicked it. She landed on her knees next to him, and he cracked one eye open to look hazily up at her, his lips forming soundless words as he wheezed for air. Raven cast about for a tool: a short hatchet, a rusted sawblade, a garden hoe snapped in two...and an old-fashioned farmer's scythe coated in blood.

Despite everything, a wicked grin split Raven's face. Qrow, like her, had rarely been allowed any descent weaponry, but since scythes were both a common farming tool and generally deemed impractical as weapons, Qrow had developed his own technique for fighting with them instead.

She hoped that was Cedar's blood in its edge.

She snatched it up, turned it on its head, and jammed the tip of the blade under the wood. She heaved against it with all her might, but the beam barely left the ground. She kicked a piece of debris underneath it and tried again, casting about for more scraps to prop it up inch by inch, until she couldn't get it any higher.

“I think you can squeeze out, but...can you move your legs?” Qrow, who'd been focused on dragging breath into his less-flattened chest, nodded.

“Just pull..." he managed. "I...can push.”

She hooked her hands under his arms and pulled. Qrow cried out at the movement, but he held tight to Raven's arms as his left leg struggled to help get him out from under the weight. The rough wood caught and shredded the back of his shirt and his skin with it, but neither of them stopped until no part of it was resting directly on him.

Raven sprinted away to the carts brought to haul back materials and found one containing a bundle of more delicate items like teacups, jewelry and silverware, all wrapped up in what appeared to be someone's giant old curtains. She grabbed the fabric and yanked, sending treasures that might have once bought blankets, meals and favors smashing to the ground.

Qrow didn't stir when she returned, which she decided to take as a kindness as she spread the thick cloth out beside him and rolled him onto it. She carefully dragged him out of the debris and just inside the circle of light from one of the other blazing structures. It was fully dark now, but the rain had mercifully petered out.

“Raven...?” Qrow mumbled, hand groping blindly in her direction, but she ignored him for now, darting over to where a section of the building had burned down to unstable kindling. She swung at it with her knife, and it crumbled and cracked until she had formed a messy pile of tinder, flames gaining new life as she pushed the fuel closer together.

Qrow kept calling her as she pulled him closer to her make-shift fire and gently tugged the cloth from under him. Even when she answered back he didn't stop until she knelt down and gave him her full attention. His pawing hand landed on her arm.

“My leg, Raven,” he panted. “...bleeding...gotta stop.” Her head whipped toward Qrow's leg, and she could now see that the front of his trousers was soaked. She tugged the fabric away from his skin to reveal a deep tear across the front of his right thigh that had her immediately gagging. She grabbed a fistful of her cloth, sliced it away from the rest, and folded it into a thick pad. She almost made the mistake of thinking about what she was doing before she set her jaw, placed it over the wound, and pressed.

Qrow screamed up into the sky, back arching, but his strength ran out in seconds, and he only coughed for air as Raven tried to find a way to secure the wound.

“It's...too deep,” he bit out between clenched teeth. “You have to burn it.”

There wasn't enough water in Remnant for how dry Raven's mouth went at the prospect, but if he was brave enough to suggest it, she was brave enough to try. She pulled out her knife and jammed into the hottest embers she could find.

“Where else?” she asked quickly. “I can't see in the dark.”

Qrow's head lolled to the side, eyelids closing. “M' head...right shoulder...the rest's not...bad.”

Raven couldn't bring herself to tell him to stay awake. Instead, she waited until he went still, then got back to work.

She tore more fabric to ribbons and wound it tight around his leg to keep the pressure. She had no trouble ripping what remained of his shirt off him, exposing a grotesque Grimm bite mark ringing his shoulder. She did her best to dab it clean with puddled rainwater, then wrapped it as neatly as she could. She repeated this to the gash she found on the back of his head, hidden under his hair, then she wrapped her hand with wet cloth and retrieved her knife.

The blood had bubbled off the blade in the heat, and a flick of water hissed instantly away. Qrow proved to be awake when he opened his mouth to bite down on the cloth muffle she offered him, making an effort to hide how badly he was shaking. Raven placed her knee above the wound to hold him down, pinned his leg with one hand, and brought down the blade with the other.

She stubbornly blinked away tears at the sound of raw agony her twin made despite his efforts to hold it in. His head banged against ground as he jerked, fingernails digging at the stones beneath him, but she didn't dare stop until she was certain the job was done. She tossed the knife away with disgust, and gagged again at the smell of the seared wound as she re-bound it tightly. It was all she could do to drape what was left of the curtains over him before collapsing on her side, utterly exhausted.

Qrow shuddered and twitched, his chest heaving as she took his bloodied fingers in her own. They were out in the open, alone in the dark, wet and dirty and reeking of blood, but Raven couldn't bring herself to care whether they made it until morning.

She was too busy despairing over the likelihood she would make it alone.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Everything hurt when she cracked her eyes open to the pre-dawn light. Her legs ached, her head throbbed, and the rest of her was sore against the hard ground. Her stomach joined the misery by cramping up and demanding food she didn't have. Qrow's hand was cold in hers, but before she could remember why that should make her afraid her eyes found his face: cheeks flushed pink, eyes shut tightly. Still breathing.

Raven carefully worked herself upright, damp clothes sapping the warmth from her skin. Despite the various protests of her body demanding she get warm, dry, fed, watered, and, ideally, back to sleep for the foreseeable future, Raven only sat; the daylight had revealed her desperate actions last night to have been laughably optimistic.

Though the wound to his head was no longer bleeding, the bite on Qrow's shoulder was hugely enflamed, swollen against the bandage. She figured her cauterization on his leg must have done some good for him to have survived the night, but he was already bone-white with blood loss, and she didn't have the stomach to look at the wound again. What had been dirt and shadows in the dark was now vicious cuts and bruises staining his face and arms and blanketing his torso, turning his flesh ugly, vivid colors. And as he lay there, shivering and sweating and struggling to breathe, she knew he'd never make it. She wasn't strong enough to move or carry him, and even when another group came back to salvage and confirm the death toll the only mercy they might offer was a bullet in his head. Any villages she might have begged for help were too far away, assuming she could navigate to them in the first place, and their inhabitants would likely dismiss her claims as a bandit ruse.

Qrow woke up an hour later, vomiting from the pain. Delirious, he moaned ceaselessly, and more than once Raven got up and wandered the clearing just to escape her twin's constant suffering, relieved every time he fainted.

Then the tribe returned.

Raven could only stare at them, unable to summon fear or anger—only an exhausted desire to get whatever was about to happen over with. But they dispersed, headed toward various bodies, without confrontation. Only one man, Joel, walked up to her. All Raven knew about him was what Qrow had told her: that he'd never hurt him directly, but liked to watch when others did. Qrow had appreciated his apathy like other kids appreciated a warm hug, but it didn't do much for him in Raven's book, especially since she knew for a fact he had been here when the attack had gone down.

His boots stopped inches from Qrow's limp body, and his eyes stayed on him while he spoke. “We're taking you back to camp, both of you. You keep quiet and don't ask question, understand?” Raven nodded; she understood enough.

Joel bent down, lifted Qrow into his arms, and turned away. She followed him to the cart where he set her brother down with his head in her lap, then left without a word. Raven's heart was beginning to pound again, and it didn't stop as bodies were checked, both for identity and for valuables, then laid side by side in a freshly-dug trench and buried. She almost missed the peace of the abandoned town; now hope was clawing its way up from where she'd laid it to rest, lacing the trip back to camp with anxiety. The bandits ignored the pair of them religiously, which Raven had seen them do to Qrow but never experienced herself. It was surprisingly unsettling.

When they arrived their resident healer, Fennel, received Qrow with some distaste and immediately banished Raven from his tent, threatening to let her brother die if she didn't stay out.

Joel 'helped' her out of his way and sat her down outside.

“Listen, sit still and behave, alright? Besides...” Here, he looked over his shoulder. “You should know what's going on—what happened the other day.”

Raven froze. “Tell me.” Joel sighed, then started talking in a fast whisper.

“Cedar was the one to make a move when Qrow was dragging this giant scythe out of a shed, but your brother swung that thing around and caught him across the stomach before he knew what was happening. Then the others jumped him; kid actually put down two of 'em before they bashed him over the head and got the thing away from him. Nearly beat him to death before Cedar stopped them just long enough to knife the kid's leg and tell them to stow him somewhere.”

Joel paused, shifting uneasily. “Your brother got quiet and...he just had this look, you know? I thought it was just hate, but I know hate, and it's dark and ugly; his eyes were so clear it felt like the gods themselves were judging us.

“The moment he went silent the rain started, and then as soon as he'd been dragged into the shed the Grimm just _appeared_ , without so much as a snapping twig. Scouts had reported nothing in the area, but this pack was huge, on us before we could run. By the time the fight was over only three of us had survived.”

Joel stared back at the entrance to Fennel's tent, and shivered. “He did it on purpose. We all knew it.”

Inside the tent, Qrow began to scream.

Joel didn't even blink. She wanted to kill him for it.

“When we got back to camp Milu and Lana were there, screeching about what _you'd_ done, tearing Cedar right in half and disappearing on the spot. The initial consensus was that you were both dead to rights, and good riddance, but the High Leader...well, he was enamored with the idea that Qrow had manipulated his Semblance, and he's always had his eye on you. He decided if you were dead, we would cut our losses, but if either of you were found alive, we would bring you back and...discuss your options.”

Bile surged up Raven's throat. “Options,” she repeated with disgust. Joel gave her a hard look.

“Between the two of you, we've lost three to the blade and seven to the Grimm. If you accept their offer with anything less than full cooperation, they _will_ kill both of you.”

“And you'll watch,” Raven said cuttingly. “Like you always do.”

He said nothing, but something hungry glinted in his eyes and Raven knew he enjoyed the prospect.

" _Joel!_ " Fennel roared. Joel rose from his crouch and walked inside the tent.

"What do you need?"

"Get over here and tie this kid down, will you? If he doesn't stop thrashing when I lance that shoulder I might take off the whole arm."

"You're not gonna dose him to keep him quiet?"

"I haven't got poppy to waste on him. Just stuff his mouth and gag him with something."

Raven slowly lowered herself onto her side and curled up, listening to the sounds of a brief struggle before her brother's yelps of pain were quickly silenced. She could sense Qrow's dread in the quiet that followed before the screaming renewed, muffled now, paired with the creaking of a wooden frame and leather binds.

Raven lay there and listened, and she imagined the tearing of her knife, and the blood on her hands, and a vision of Cedar ripped in half. She pictured it again, this time with Joel, and then again, with Fennel.

And she hated, and she hated, and she _hated_.

___________________________________________________________

Qrow's recovery was long, but everyone was hesitant to move against him now that his bad luck was a curse that might actually be useful--and that he might level at any one of them. Raven swelled with satisfaction at the new respect, but to Qrow, the fact that he could bring more harm and not less wasn't enough to excite him, especially when it meant his first experience in killing had left aching scars all over his skin and nine bodies in his wake—a lot of blood on the hands of an eleven-year-old child.

Raven was, if anything, envious of her brother's kill count, and found only reward in expanding her own--though not, unfortunately, through killing Joel orFennel. It kept her and Qrow alive, made adults want to train her and other children want to spar, made her voice louder and her head higher and anyone who didn't like it she could face head-on. The strong lived, and _she_ was strong, _she_ had lived. If the weak had to die for that to be true, so be it. She was convinced that if only her brother hadn't had the scales weighed so heavily against him, he would have found the same solace in that balance as she did, but skilled combat and killing hordes of Grimm seemed enough to satisfy him.

So when it came time to infiltrate a Huntsmen academy, Raven and Qrow were equally eager for the challenge. Raven saw no need to worry about the minor gap between them over killing human targets—after all, Qrow had never failed to do so when necessary. Finally, away from the tribe, she and Qrow would no longer be separated by their perceived worth, and by the time they returned they would have strength and skill so great they would no longer bend to the judgement of anyone.

They were the same. They were twins. They were _family._ They always stayed together.

Nothing was going to change that. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any feedback you may have--this author loves it!


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